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Matt Beckley, The TVD Interview

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Matt Beckley, The TVD Interview

The son of rock legend Gerry Beckley of America, Matt was a part of the professional world of popular music since birth. He grew up on the floors of recording studios in Los Angeles in awe of his father’s artistic prowess and the magic of making music, while at the same time understanding the realities of the recording artist’s vocation and its tangibility. While some young people exposed to such a situation might take it for granted or rebel against it, Matt possessed the intelligence and inherent artistic impulse to desire knowledge and experience, knowing he held an innate ability and interest to add something new to the ongoing legacy of recorded music.

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Sasha Dobson, The TVD Interview

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Sasha Dobson, The TVD Interview

Smack in the middle of an era full of complications—and amidst a year of fear and confusion—singer-songwriter Sasha Dobson has released her four-song EP “Simple Things” that reminds all of us to divert our attention toward what truly matters.

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Marcus Eaton, The TVD Interview

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Marcus Eaton, The TVD Interview

“Seems impossible to tell seasons apart, or know exactly which way the weather’s going to go,” states singer-songwriter Marcus Eaton in “Closer,” the third moodily introspective track on his EP “Invisible Lines,” released last month on vinyl. New and timely in its themes of isolation, sociological questioning, and nature awareness, Eaton’s EP stands as a semi-unintentional testament to the wild, sad, and unpredictable times we are currently living through.

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Bowie’s Changes – the Many Lives of a Rock Artist: David Bowie IS, the Brooklyn Museum

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Bowie’s Changes – the Many Lives of a Rock Artist: David Bowie IS, the Brooklyn Museum

When it comes to approach of identity-definition, there are two kinds of artists.

The first kind develops his/her craft and his idiom as far as they can go, and then, once sensing that the craft and idiom have within themselves some kind of success-potential for communication of ideas and sentiments, settles upon them. The artist decides to perfect his/her selected approach - and perform it and publish it - again and again and again. And it works well. Audiences who dig it do dig it and don’t ask questions.

The second kind possesses and revels in his/her craft and his idiom as parts of him/herself, and then, once sensing their abilities and limitations in terms of potential for artistic achievement, rejects them. The artist decides that s/he will reinvent the selected craft - and dress it in different fabrics and colors and styles - again and again and again. And it works well. Audiences who dig it do dig it, mostly, and ask an ongoing plethora of ever-changing questions as they bear witness to the eternal evolution of the artist’s craft.

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Donald Fagen and The Nightflyers, The TVD Interview

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Donald Fagen and The Nightflyers, The TVD Interview

“I wish I had a heart like ice,” Donald Fagen—or rather his character, uber-hip yet lovelorn jazz DJ Lester—yearns in “The Nightfly.” The track is a high point on an autobiography-infused nostalgiAlbum of high points. The Nightfly, Fagen’s debut solo recording—which also featured classics “I.G.Y.” and “New Frontier”—was nominated for seven Grammy awards and released in 1982.